The OregonianOregon fans who don't have cable will have to find an alternate way to watch the BCS title game this season, because it's only on cable.

We wrote in the paper yesterday about how, for the first time in BCS history, the biggest games on TV will only be available on cable. Gone are the days of free broadcast TV. In place of ABC we've got ESPN. And that's leaving more than one Duck fan out in the cold.

David Sweet, a Duck fan who lives in Portland, doesn't have cable. What's the point, he says, when, as Bruce Springsteen put it, you've got "52 channels and nothing on"?

"I believe that television actually has a harmful effect on our culture," Sweet wrote in an email.
"TV news exaggerates the violence in our community, and TV shows present
an overly pessimistic view of people’s motivations and relationships.
There is a direct correlation between the amount of television people
watch, and the amount of fear and distrust they feel about other people
and the world. So, people who watch a lot of television are less likely
to go out and participate in our community, and more likely to stay
home and watch more television. Fox News, anyone? Desperate
Housewives? 'Reality' shows?

"Given all that, I cannot justify
the ridiculous cost for cable — $65 a month or more ... We have
allowed a situation to develop where things that we used to get for free
(e.g. bowl games) are increasingly priced out of the reach of many
people. ESPN can outbid the broadcast networks for exclusive rights to
desirable events, because they can use that exclusivity to demand higher
rates from cable companies with resulting higher costs to consumers.
We’re headed for more and more expensive entertainment for fewer and
fewer people. That game ends badly. I won’t play."

On Jan. 10, Sweet plans to click onto ESPN3.com and hook his computer up to his TV for family and friends where they'll crowd around the TV eating homemade pizza to watch Oregon take on Auburn. But for fans who don't have the internet hook up, does anyone have suggestions in the Portland, Salem and Eugene areas for places to watch the game?